Due to the large expanse of deep blue wet stuff in between us, it’s often difficult for our European clients to attend the user group meetings here in the US.  We are pleased to announce that the first meeting of European Advantage clients will take place Tuesday, 7 July 2009 at the London Paddington Hilton Hotel from 10:30 to 16:00.

Dan Heffernan, VP of Sales, Marketing and Product Planning, will recap his presentation on the direction of ACS and Advantage from the AUG meeting this past January, and Philippe van Mastrigt, Director of European Operations, will also present new features in the latest release of Advantage.

Andy Wright, this year’s chairman of the User Group Steering Committee, will be there to talk about AUG and to answer any questions you may have about it.

If you are an Advantage client in Europe, these presentations are great reasons to attend.  In addition, you will get the opportunity to:

• Discuss a possible European Advantage Users Group
• Network with other Advantage clients
• Hear what Advantage has been up to in Europe

For more information, contact Andy Wright at Oxford University Press or Dan Heffernan at ACS.

Advantage Training Week is on the horizon!  This year, it is being held on four days in mid September here in Ann Arbor.  Registration information will be available in early July.  Keep an eye on the ACS website for more information soon.  

Advantage Training Week 2009

Tuesday, September 15 -- Friday, September 18, 2009

Course Titles and Instructors:

* SQL Server DBA Training for Non-DBAs – Molly Mathe, Doug Moore
* Delivering Business Intelligence through Data Cubes and Executive Dashboards – John Sheehy, Levi Hyssong
* Advantage Financial Management: Reconciliation, Auditing, and Reporting – Bob Thornton, Paul DesRosiers, Corey Mantel
* Reducing Personnel Expenses:  Optimizing Data Entry and Customer Service – Mona Hidayet
* Marketing Analysis Reports and Business Intelligence in Advantage—Richard Hile, Karl Davis
* Essentials of Data Warehousing in Advantage – Todd Gilson, Philippe Rowland
* Maximizing Results through Effective Project Management—Tim Zapawa, Tom Hermans
* Enhancing the Customer Service Experience:  Powerful Contact Management – Angie Markel, Eric Burbeck

Most clients know about the hotkey toolbars in Advantage that provide short cuts to maintain customer services notes, and initiate customer searches, as well as product and subscription lookups.  However, with the 2008r1 release of Advantage, all module-based request views were removed and replaced with the CDSREQ view.

With that change, we introduced a new hotkey that you might not be familiar with.  It resembles a sheet of paper with a green arrow, and it launches the request processes dialog box, so you don’t have to route to the CDSREQ view every time you want to request a report, process, or jobstream.   

Setting Hotkey preferences

The available hotkeys are controlled under the Views/Preferences menu option.  Most of the pre-existing hotkeys are available under the Hotkeys Toolbar, while the new process request button is available under the Hotkeys 2 Toolbar.

Keyboard Shortcuts

I find most clients routinely use the standard keyboard shortcuts, as they are displayed when a mouse pointer hovers over the button.  I’ve noticed, however, that clients who have recently upgraded to 2008r1 or above aren’t often aware of the CTRL-SHFT+1 keyboard shortcut for requesting a process.  This keyboard shortcut brings up the Process Search dialog box, which has all the functionality that is available at the CDSREQ and CDSREQ/JST views.   

Two rarely known, but useful, shortcuts are CTRL+S and CTRL+R.  The CTRL+S and CTRL+R shortcuts are useful when entering search criteria at views having multiple search fields, such as SVCDAT.  When used, the CTRL+S keyboard shortcut will maintain your current search criteria and reposition the cursor to the initial search field.  The CTRL+R keyboard shortcut will clear all your search criteria and position the cursor in the initial search field.

A customer subscribes to a journal or to content access.  Excellent!  This is the start of a relationship that has some built-in communication points.  These may include the initial invoicing, and at some point, renewal promotions will begin.  A subscription-based relationship has on-going touch-points where the client is involved with your content and continues to purchase access to it in different ways.

Unfortunately, these automatic communication points haven’t previously existed with product purchases.  Someone buys a book, you collect payment and send it and that relationship is over.  Well, not anymore!  You can now do the same sort of thing with product purchases as you can with subscriptions through the Order Again feature, which is based in the Product Sales Analysis module (SAL).

Here’s how it works: Ray buys something about tennis.  Great!  You have lots of items about tennis.  Or maybe you have an on-line offering related to the product they purchased.   

The Order Again feature allows you to create a subscription-like record that you can execute a series of promotions against – similar to a renewal series.  The subscription-like record is called an Instance of a Product Summary ID.  You set up your series through an outlined set of select rules that identify the effort you want to produce – just like renewals.  If the customer responds and purchases, the Instance is updated to reflect that and you can continue the relationship with another series of efforts, as soon as you want.

Excited?  OK, here is how you can go about designing your use of this feature.

   1. What Product Summaries do you want to create?  You can set up a Product Summary for a specific product or group of products.

   2. Which transactions do you want to involve with this?  You can control which customer types participate through a setting on the customer type record (CDSCTM/TYP).  The Product Summary record has a selection set that allows you to define more explicitly which transactions you want to move into an Order Again promotional series.

   3. Finally, what would the series look like?  How many efforts?  When?  Mailed/emailed?  Promotional pitch?  Like billing or renewal efforts, you need to have an output formatting routine to produce the efforts.

Include the SAL350 process in your regular processing schedule to keep the Instances up to date.  Include SAL380 in your end-of-month processing schedule to update monthly information on the Instances.  That’s about it. See the Sales Analysis manual to read more.

P.S.  A side benefit of Product Summaries is that you can show a rating for three of those Product Summaries for the customer when looking at their Customer Portrait.

In Advantage, a non-pay cancel transaction causes the customer to lose any premium set they would have received on a paid order.  As of 2009R1, however, there is an option to restore a premium set if the customer later reinstates.

If the subscription is later reinstated, you have the option of allowing the customer to receive the premium set--you simply set the CIR option PRMSTREI ("Restore Premium Set on REI?") to Y to enable this handling; the default setting is N.

When the option is set to Y, and a subscription with a pending premium set is non-pay cancelled, MST391 places the premium set into a special status ("H" – Held).  These sets are retained in the MSTPRM-M table, in case the non-pay cancelled sub is later reinstated.

If you have set the PRMSTREI option to Y, and the sub is reinstated, Advantage will remove the hold on the premium set and process it normally through the system (this occurs automatically and silently---there is no message at the time of the REI).  From a premium set point of view, it is as if the subscription had never been cancelled.

Please note these points about the feature:

• If the composition of the premium set has been changed between the time of cancellation and the time of reinstatement---for example, if items were added to or deleted from a sequence, or if whole sequences were added or deleted---the restored set does not reflect these changes.  The customer receives the same premium items as he/she would have had the sub not been cancelled.
• Use of this feature could inflate the number of records in your MSTPRM-M table.  You can use the MST840 process to selectively purge these records.

Mention Howard ("Howie") Brooks to others at ACS and right after "knowledgeable," "smart," and  "dedicated"  you hear words like "balanced," "calm," and "level-headed."  Howie is able to juggle the many and varied demands of his job as the Manager of Product Development with rare aplomb.

The leader of a team of eight development engineers who work on enhancements to the software, as well as new modules and functionality, Howie has that rare ability to keep the big picture of the entire structure of the Advantage software in his head.  He can look at a proposed enhancement and know just how--and where--it will affect the current software.

Dick Hile, VP of Product Engineering and Howie's boss, describes him this way: "Simply put, Howie is indispensable.  He is like an orchestra conductor who can channel scores of individual musicians to produce one harmonious sound.  Howie is able to achieve a great outcome from what might appear to some to be chaos."

Howie joined ACS in 1995—a banner year for him.  He graduated in June (with a degree in computer engineering from Michigan State University), got married in July and started work at ACS in August.  Then, like now, he handled the major life events with unruffled calm.

Howie started his ACS career on Karl Davis' team and worked on client implementations learning conversions.  He then served as the lead engineer for Boy Scouts, UCG, American Medical Association and Palm Coast Data, among others.  Along the way he earned his Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer certification and he took over as Product Development Manager in 2003.

Most of his time now is spent facilitating, he says.  He is always available to answer questions or make suggestions on the projects being worked on by his team.  But he also works closely with the analysts, the sales staff, the product planning folks and the QA group.

"Howie is the perfect buffer between engineering and the rest of the Advantage worlds," says Alan Cherney, an engineer on Howie's team. "He always knows the best way to communicate an engineering situation, problem, or response to the Quality Assurance team or the Support Center.  I always find that he has either great advice – or he is simply willing to go to bat for me!  He's not just a good boss, he is a great "leader" in the sense that he's willing to represent his entire team.  He doesn't pass blame or responsibility to his team members when things go wrong, but is quick to deflect praise to the individuals under his leadership."

One of a select few Michigan State grads among a plethora of University of Michigan Wolverines at ACS, Howie doesn't let the rivalry get to him.  He good-naturedly accepts the ribbing that comes when a U of M teams beats the MSU Spartans, and he gives it back with gusto when MSU comes out on top.

Bob Gray, another team member, has this to say about Howie:  "He's a great manager.  He excels at multi-tasking and keeps a level head when things get intense.  He has tremendous product knowledge, plus a wealth of technical know-how.  Howie has a great concern for the integrity of the software product, and he balances this beautifully with his commitment to the needs of clients.  He sees both as being highly important, and is well-balanced in his approach to managing them."

Even with the constant interruptions and distractions that go with his position, Howie loves it.  His favorite part of the job is the people he works with, says Howie, both coworkers and clients, and he also very much enjoys learning new things.  Although he doesn't get to set aside as much time as he would like to work on them, he does get involved with the major "background" projects going on mostly behind the scenes in Advantage.  These include the recent new user interface development, the Business Intelligence initiative and learning C#.

Howie and his wife, Amy, live in Ann Arbor with their three daughters, Ella, 7, Melanie, 4, and Nora, 2, a chocolate lab named Sophie, a cat named Sunday, and two guinea pigs.  On weekends and vacations, Howie and Amy like to go with their girls to parks and zoos and also spend time at a family cottage on Saginaw Bay.  Howie doesn't like to miss the Cheeseburger Festival there every August!

In his leisure time, Howie likes books—nice "light" reading such as theoretical physics texts, with some science fiction and classics thrown in.   He is currently almost done with Les Miserables.  Other hobbies include fooling around with 3D animation software as well as teaching himself another programming language—Python, for instance--just for kicks.    With all he has going on, Howie is a multi-multi-tasker!

The Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) went live on Advantage in March.  As an independent, private-sector organization, FAF is responsible for the oversight, administration, and finances of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB), and their advisory councils.   

Based in Norwalk, Connecticut, FAF provides online, CD-ROM, print, and subscription services comprising the accounting standards promulgated by the FASB and GASB.  The FAF team was led by Jim Lapinski, Publications Distribution Manager.  Project Manager Mike Miklosovic led the implementation for ACS.

Agora, Inc. is a holding company for more than 20 publishers of financial, health, travel and special interest books and newsletters -- each offering unique ideas, information and insights. Altogether, Agora companies publish more than 300 books and 40 newsletters, reaching 1 million readers from around the world. 

Based in the historic Mount Vernon district of Baltimore, Agora is housed in a collection of 19th century mansions. They also have offices in London, Bonn, Paris, Johannesburg, Buenos Aires, Melbourne and Waterford, and many of their titles are available in French, Spanish, German and Italian.

The company’s name has its origin in history.  The Agora was a lively marketplace for the ancient Greeks, where people came not only to buy and sell goods but also to meet to exchange news and ideas. That same philosophy is what drives Agora, Inc.

As Agora founder and president William Bonner explains: “Agora is a publishing company. We offer our customers ideas, information, and insights. But we do so in a manner very different from that of the traditional publishing house.  Rather than being centered on the medium—whether a given publication is, say, a book, a magazine, or a newsletter—Agora is centered on the ideas themselves. When we have something to say about a subject—whether it be speculative investing or natural health—we offer our ideas in many different ways, including books, newsletters, Web sites, conferences, tours and special reports.

The medium is important from a business perspective…but it is not as important as the message itself.And what is the message? We publish ideas on a variety of subjects. Some of these ideas are very practical—such as how to get the best price on an airline ticket. Others are rather abstract—such as our discussion of man’s relationship to the state. But all of Agora’s messages have something in common. They all celebrate the virtue of thinking independently and taking responsibility for your own life.”

Agora became an Advantage client in 2000.  The evaluation team wanted a better integrated system for their newsletters, supplements and list business. They were also looking for a system flexible enough to accommodate the fast-changing needs of their growing business.  Daryl Berver, President of the Publishing Services Division, says:  “We need our fulfillment system vendor to be a true partner, almost an extension of our staff, and we have that with ACS.  Since we went live in early 2001, Advantage has been instrumental in Agora’s continued evolution and growth.”

Agora puts its publishing philosophy into practice in its business operations as well.  Independent thinking and taking responsibility are watchwords of the business and technical staff, not just editors and writers.  Currently, electronic marketing is a major focus, and Agora is looking to pave new ground in this area.

Tara Rebak, Vice President of Fulfillment Systems, has this to say: “When our business needs shift, we always know that ACS is going to be supportive of the new endeavors we want to pursue and they work with us every step of the way. We just completed a major implementation of the new customer service letters feature that will enable us to electronically reply to customer correspondence in a more efficient and timely manner. This was just another example of the partnership we’ve developed with ACS and why we’ll continue to develop the functionality of the software.”

On July 1st, Advantage Computing Systems will celebrate 30 years of serving the publishing industry.  The company is hosting a picnic later this month for current and former employees and their families at the Ann Arbor site.  In addition to large grills to cook hamburgers, hot dogs and chicken, inflatable jump tents and other amusement items are being brought in.  Games and prizes will keep the little ones happy and for older “children,” the dunk tank is a popular attraction (although perhaps not for those sitting in it!).   The Velcro wall and padded jousting suits are also good for some laughs.  

The forerunners of what is today Advantage Computing Systems began operating in 1979, although the company—then T & B Computing—was not officially incorporated until 1980.  Due to an agreement allowing employees of the companies that were formed into ACS to count their years of service in those firms, several current ACS employees can boast more years of service than the company has been in business!

In its early days, the software was written in Cobol (ugh!) and Fortran and ran on PRIME computers.  The computer room was half the size of a football field and each of the dozens of machines in it was as big as a refrigerator, each with perhaps 4 to 8 MB of memory.  PCs did not exist and programming was done on green screen terminals, including the old reliable IBM 3101s which had dipswitches to enable lower-case letters.

Software demonstrations have evolved as well.  The early years saw salespeople toting large, unwieldy dumb terminals and later, entire servers and the need to connect back to the home office with modems resulted in many instances of dropped lines and pauses to reconnect.  Web demo capability and the advent of websites have streamlined the demo process tremendously.  Face-to-face meetings with prospective clients are still an important event in the sales cycle, but now the software and a sizeable database is housed on a small, lightweight laptop.  The display projectors have also decreased in size and weight by several orders of magnitude.

Support is usually web-based in 2009, while in the past, various methods of connecting were used and were slow, and expensive.  Reports and processes can be run instantly, providing the information needed to find solutions to support questions much faster than in the old days.

And then there’s the software itself.  Thirty years of development has brought it such a long way from the days when reports were printed out on green-bar paper and immediate access to customer or publication information was unheard of.  Today’s data cubes and pivot tables, plus online, real-time updates mean that information and analysis is available almost instantly to service reps and customers alike.  And that information is much more comprehensive and detailed than was possible even a decade ago.

ACS is proud to be celebrating 30 years in the industry; something not many technology companies get to do.  We appreciate all of our clients and the trust you place in us to allow us to serve your business.

We pledge to do our best to serve you for another thirty years. Here are some major milestone events from the 30-year journey. 

Advantage Computing Systems History Timeline

1979

• T & B Computing is formed by merging Publishing, Project Accounting and Project Scheduling divisions into one group with three products under Townsend and Bottum, Inc. (located at Research Park)  

1982

• TBC moved to Eisenhower Place

1988 

• TBC acquired by Thomas S. Monaghan, Inc.

1989

• Introduced “The Publisher’s Advantage Computing System®”
• INTACT 50 starts phasing out
• Migrated from Prime computers to DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation)

1990

• Corporate decision to focus primarily on subscription and product fulfillment
• TBC moves to Green Road.

1992

• Roger, Tom and Sam purchase the company from Thomas S. Monaghan, Inc.
• TBC moves to Domino’s Farms
• Employee count: 35

1993

• First client running Advantage on IBM AIX goes live

1995

• Advantage becomes a true client/server system with a Windows client and a VMS server
• Windows 95 replaces Windows 3.1 as the preferred client for client server Advantage

1996

• Windows NT becomes a valid server platform for Advantage

1997

• Corporate name changes to Advantage Computing Systems, Inc. (nicknamed “Advantage” or “ACS”)
• Advantage is the first vendor in the industry to offer integrated e-commerce capability.
• First building on Ranchero Drive is complete and ACS moves in

1998

• Advantage ports to SQLServer and Oracle

1999

• Advantageoffers multi-currency functionality to Publishing clients
• Advantage Support Center is formed

2000

• Advantage proves to be fully Y2K compliant, as predicted, and the world does not disintegrate!

2001

• Advantage incorporates data-cube reporting tools

2002

• First client in the UK – and first non-US—is signed
• Second building on Ranchero Drive is completed and ACS engineering team moves south
• ACS Children’s Center opens to care for children of ACS staff

2004

• First client in Australia is signed.

2005

• Advantage 2005:The Next Generation new user interface is introduced
• Access Management and Billing module is released to expand Advantage internet connectivity

2006

• First client in France, Bayard Presse, is signed
• Advantage goes multi-lingual
• Direct debit functionality is added to Advantage

2008

• Upgrade team completes 100th upgrade of the century. Celebrates improved and streamlined process which has helped create a stable base of 50 large clients running Advantage.

2009

• 30th Anniversary!  Employee count has grown to 75 highly skilled and experienced professionals

• 59 employees 5+ years with ACS
• 38 employees 10+ years with ACS
• 19 employees 20+ years with ACS
• 14 employees 25+ years with ACS

We are in the middle of the conference and trade show rush of late spring/early summer as I write this.  June, like December, is one of the busiest months of the year with school concerts, plays, final exams, graduations, parties, weddings, anniversaries, Father’s Day and, if you’re blessed like my family, numerous birthdays.  To add to the busyness, The Society for Scholarly Publishing, SIPA and Audience Development all have their annual conferences and exhibitions during the same period.  By the time July comes, we’re ready for a holiday.

My complaining is really a fraud, however, because the trade shows are enjoyable work.   In many of these organizations, the same attendees are there year after year and we have formed friendships and alliances with our colleagues in the information distribution (aka publishing) industry.  It’s always good to see old friends and acquaintances and catch up on industry news.  At two of this year’s trade shows, attendance was high, especially given the soft economy and cuts in travel budgets at so many companies.

Certainly one of the reasons for this is that publishers are looking for ways to increase their audience while cutting costs.  Many have had to downsize and depend on outsourcing to keep their businesses going.  We at ACS are always on the lookout for ways we can help you cut costs through efficiencies, automation, more e-commerce and interfaces with other systems.  As your solutions provider, we suggest that you consider taking advantage of some of the ancillary services we can provide.  You may not be aware, for example, that you can ask ACS to:

• Perform operations services, such as kicking off processes and monitoring them at night
• Host your system physically in our facility
• Provide customer service and data entry
• Help you with your website design and implementation with our API
• Review your operation and provide cost-saving recommendations
  

Some of these services, such as operator services, can be provided with little notice and for a temporary period, such as when your operator is on vacation.

We’re here to be your partner and to help you be successful.  Please contact your account manager to begin the conversation.

On another note, Advantage Computing Systems is celebrating 30 years this month.  Surviving 30 years in high technology probably is worth some sort of “staying power” award.  Certainly we can claim to be a successful company, having gone 17 straight years without a losing quarter.  But we also measure our success by having satisfied customers.  You are the reason for our success, and we sincerely appreciate your business and partnership.